February 14, 2007

Living in neutral
UNH Carsey Institute studies idleness
By Brian Early bearly@hippopress.com

The Carsey Institute of the University of New Hampshire recently released a report on youth and idleness. Anastasia Snyder is an Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Science at Ohio State University. She, along with Diane McLaughlin, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography at Penn State University, produced the report, “Rural Youth More Likely to be Idle,” available at Carsey’s Web site, www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu. It’s part of a larger study looking at trends of idleness in youth.

Q: What were you after in this project?
This is the first step in a larger project that is looking at employment and education outcomes for rural youth and young adults in the United States. We specifically were interested in how they combined work and education in this age between 18 to 24; it’s called the emerging adulthood period of life. Things have changed for young adults in the United States. The transition into adulthood is longer, more complicated, and demands more of today’s youth, especially with regards to education attainment and work experience. We used the current population survey from 2006 to get a national estimate of what’s going on for both rural and urban youth. This fact sheet looked at the concept of idleness, which means they’re not working nor are they engaging in any sort of education pursuit.

How did you get thinking about this issue?
My degree is in human development, family studies and demography, and I’m a rural sociologist. I have an interest in youth, and Diane McLaughlin, the co-author of the report, has an interest in rural issues, so we put our heads together and started working on projects. Rural youth are more interesting when it comes to how they combine work and education. They have to essentially move to meet some of their goals. That’s part of a different project, but that’s how I got interested in rural youth. Rural populations tend to be more vulnerable than other populations. They tend to have a high poverty rate and lower earnings.

How long has this idea of idleness been around for?
It’s a relatively new concept. There’s not a lot out there on idleness. Part of what we’re working on is a larger, longer report for the Carsey Institute that looks at the long-term perspective on idleness. We’re going to go back and look at census data from 1980, 1990 and 2000 and look at trends in idleness. Has idleness become a bigger problem than it was 20 years ago? What brings youth into the idleness state? What brings them out? How long do spells of idleness last? Is it a problem with leaving school, or is it a problem of finding work? We can use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997, to follow youth and get more at the process kinds of questions regarding idleness.

Isn’t it fun sitting around and doing nothing?
[Laughs] It can be fun for a Saturday afternoon or on the weekends, but the point is that society demands more of youth and young adults. Those good jobs with a high school education aren’t there anymore and youth need to get some post-secondary education to be a viable candidate in the labor market. When youth are spending too much time being idle, they are not gaining the experience that they need, and it puts them behind in some ways. They also might be launching themselves on a path of early adulthood that is going nowhere. What we want is for them to get the appropriate level of post-secondary education that they need to get them a job that will lead them to economic independence and become a productive member of society. Spells of idleness in the summer — it’s not so much of a concern. If it’s a chronic problem, especially with rural minorities that experience idleness because of a labor market issue, then that’s a big problem.

Where does idleness occur more?
The biggest problem with idleness was in the South and the West United States. About 11 percent overall, and about 18 percent of rural youth in the West, were idle. It’s about 1 in 6 that are not going to school or not working. Among high school dropouts, the Northeast had the highest proportion of rural idle youth. In rural areas of the Northeast, 45 percent of the youth are idle. A higher percentage of males are idle than females. More young women are attending and graduating from college than men are, so that’s not that surprising.

Why are you interested in this age group?
Emerging adulthood is an hypothesized stage of human development, somewhere between adolescence and adulthood. It’s thought to be a stage where the most salient life experiences occur related to education, occupation and family formation that can put youth on a track towards success or away from success.

— Brian Early

Anastasia Snyder is the Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Science at Ohio State University. She is the co-author of the recent Carsey Institute Report, "Rural Youth More Likely to be Idle"